Your sofa should be roughly two-thirds the length of your rug.

LaRae Quy stood at the top of a diving board several feet above the water. Quy, a new FBI recruit going through her academy training, just stared at the swimming pool below.

The assignment was clear: She was to jump into the pool, armed with an M-16 rifle, and swim from one end of the pool to the other.

There were only two problems:

Quy had just discovered she was afraid of heights.
She didn’t know how to swim.

As she stood there in front of her fellow students and trainers, a question kept going through her head:

Can I do this?

Needing to think fast, Quy shifted the question—and her perspective—with one word:

How can I do this?

That simple tweak empowered Quy. She informed her training officer she was unable to swim, and he promptly gave her a life vest. (Turns out the aim of the challenge wasn’t seeing how well cadets could swim, rather, how they dealt with challenging circumstances.) She then overcame her fear, took the leap, and somehow completed the test.

“I’m a big believer in reframing and positive thinking,” Quy told me in an interview. “Giving up wasn’t an option. And this lesson continued to help me in 24 years at the FBI.”

Why is this simple question so valuable? And how can you use it to overcome your “impossible” challenges? Let’s break it down. (Sign up here for my free email course on emotional intelligence.) A hack taken from neuroscience

Quy explained to my why she finds this question so valuable, and it has to do with the way our brains process emotions.

“I learned this later, but our first response to any situation is emotional,” Quy told me. “Our limbic brain is small, but powerful. And left on its own, it just spins out of control when we’re confronted with something scary. Then we find ourselves reacting and being driven by our emotions.”

“Focusing on ‘how can I’ helps me to come up with a plan that assures that little emotional part of our brain that I’m on it, so I can get it under control.”

This lesson helped Quy again some time later when she had to make her first arrest. Quy and her training agent received a tip that a wanted and potentially violent criminal had been spotted at a local bar, and they decided to make a car arrest.

After tailing the car for a bit, both Quy’s car and the suspects pulled up to a stoplight. Sitting in the passenger seat, Quy looked over and saw a huge man behind the steering wheel. The backup that was supposed to accompany them had gotten lost in traffic.

“In that instant, I knew I had to be the one to make that arrest,” Quy told me.

Quickly and decisively, Quy pulled off her FBI raid jacket, pulled her sweater down over her gun, and got out of the car. She walked over to his window, knocked, and motioned that the driver should roll down his window.

“Then I pulled my gun and I said, ‘FBI, you’re under arrest!’”

The SWAT team arrived soon after and fortunately the suspect was apprehended without issue. But it was all possible because of quick thinking on Quy’s part—thinking that focused not on whether or not she could handle on the task at hand, but how she was going to handle it.

“Change the mindset, change the behavior, change the outcome,” Quy said. That’s what I learned over all those years in the FBI.” Using ‘how can I’ in the workplace

How can you leverage this question to overcome your “impossible” challenges?

Let’s say you’re a solopreneur who’s barely surviving the hamster wheel of content creation. Instead of asking yourself whether you can keep this up, ask yourself: How can I repurpose content or streamline processes to make this more manageable?

If you’re working in a saturated niche, don’t ask whether or not you can grow your audience. Instead, ask yourself how you can set yourself apart. What unique audience can you serve, or angle can you speak from, that allows you to resonate?

Or, maybe your company has found success, and you’ve started to scale. You’re dealing with a bigger team and more customers. Instead of asking if you can manage this, ask how you’re going manage it. This can help you identify the people, systems, and other help you need.

The key, whatever “impossible” challenge you’re facing, is to change “Can I?” to “How can I?” If you do, you’ll change your mindset, change your behavior, and change your outcome—while building the mental toughness and confidence to do whatever you set your mind to do.

Most people say they want to live to a ripe old age. But that isn’t really true. What people really want is to live to a ripe, old age in good mental and physical health. Some of us actually get to live this dream. These folks are known as “superagers” and they make it well into their 80s not just in decent physical shape, but also with minds at least as sharp as people 30 years younger.

How do they manage it? That’s the question Northwestern University researchers have been aiming to answer with a 25-year long study. It examined the brains and lifestyles of almost 300 superagers.

As you’d expect, a quarter century of data shows it really helps to be born with lucky biology. The neuroscientists found a number of physical differences between the brains of superagers and the average person. There isn’t much non-scientists can do with that information. We have to make the most of the brains bequeathed to us by our DNA.

Luckily, the researchers also discovered one big difference in behavior sets apart superagers who are still going strong into their 80s and beyond. It’s something any of us can adopt in our own lives.

Superagers’ brains are different

When you scan or posthumously autopsy the brains of superagers, they look different than average brains, according to Sandra Weintraub, a Northwestern psychology professor involved in the study. Normal brains generally show some accumulation of the plaques and protein tangles that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. Superagers’ brains are largely free of them.

The study also revealed that while the outer layer of the brain, known as the cortex, tends to thin out as we age, it stays thick in superagers. They also have a different mix of cell types in their brain.

“Our findings show that exceptional memory in old age is not only possible but is linked to a distinct neurobiological profile. This opens the door to new interventions aimed at preserving brain health well into the later decades of life,” Weintraub commented to Northwestern Now.

That’s of huge interest in scientists looking for treatments that can help us stay healthier longer. Weintraub calls the findings ““earth-shattering for us.” But for those of us without medical degrees, there’s little we can do with this information. You can’t vacuum rogue proteins out of your brain or plump its cortex. (Though other studies do suggest sleep helps to wash proteins and other gunk out of your brain, so maybe don’t skimp on shuteye.) And so are their social lives

Further complicating those looking for an easy takeaway from the research, the superagers also didn’t have a lot of lifestyle factors in common. Some were athletes. Others, confirmed loafers. Some drank. Others smoked. They ate different things and kept different habits. But there was one big exception. Superagers, it turns out, tend to be incredibly social.

“The group was particularly sociable and relished extracurricular activities. Compared to their cognitively average, same-aged peers, they rated their relationships with others more positively. Similarly, on a self-reported questionnaire of personality traits they tended to endorse high levels of extraversion,” the researchers reported in recent paper published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Want to be a superager? Focus on your relationships

This might come as a surprise to laypeople who think aging well is all about HIIT workouts and plentiful kale. But it likely isn’t a huge shock to other scientists. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has been minutely tracking the lives of some 724 original participants (and now some of their descendants) since 1938.

It discovered the biggest predictor of a long, healthy life isn’t biological. It’s social. The better the quality of your relationships, the more likely you are to age well. And while you have only indirect influence on things like your cholesterol level and brain health, you are directly in control of your social life.

It’s something we can and should prioritize, according to study director Robert Waldinger. “We think of physical fitness as a practice, as something we do to maintain our bodies. Our social life is a living system, and it needs maintenance too,” hetold the Harvard Gazette.

The effects of keeping up your social ties aren’t minor. Neuroscientist Bryan James, author of another study on aging and social contact summed up his findings this way: “Social activity is associated with a decreased risk of developing dementia and mild cognitive impairment, and that the least socially active older adults developed dementia an average of five years before the most socially active.”

Keeping up with friends helps with healthy aging. But so does keeping up with learning. Research has shown a strong link between keeping your brain active and maintaining cognitive performance deep into your later years. One study found that just joining a class to learn a new skill or hobby improved brain performance as if subjects were 30 years younger. Another one, done at Stanford, found no cognitive decline at all until retirement and beyond if you stay mentally active. Are you getting your 5-3-1?

All of which suggests that staying social and mentally engaged is one of the most impactful moves you can make if you dream of becoming a superager yourself. The basic takeaway when it comes to mental function and aging is, use it or lose it.

But experts have offered more detailed guidance too. Harvard-trained social scientist and author Kasley Killam, for instance, has suggested the “5–3–1 rule:”

Spend time with five different people a week. This could be anyone from your gym buddy or book club bestie to the person the next pew over at church.
Nurture three close relationships. Equally important is maintaining tighter bonds with three of the people closest to you, usually family and dear friends.
Aim for one hour of social interaction a day. “That doesn’t have to be all at once. It could be 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there,” Killam explained to Business Insider. You can also combine social time with other activities, walking the dog with a neighbor, say. 

Even just chatting on the phone can have more of an impact than many people suspect. “According to a recent study in the U.S., talking on the phone for 10 minutes two to five times a week significantly lowered people’s levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety,” Killam reports in Psychology Today. Change what you can influence

The bad news from science is that superagers really are different physically. Their brains have biological quirks that help them stay sharp longer. There’s no way, unfortunately, to borrow that magic. But there is something else that sets superagers apart which you can steal.

It’s not a diet or exercise plan. It’s a love for getting out and seeing other people and learning new things. It turns out the more you maintain your social connections and mental stimuli, the more likely you are to get just not more years. But more healthy, active, and sharp years.

“Aging’s all right,” the late President George H.W. Bush once said. “Better than the alternative.”

But what’s even better than “better than the alternative?” Realizing that as you get older you actually do get better — at least in some ways — and that there’s scientific research to back up that notion.

The latest example comes from the journal Intelligence, in which psychologists Gilles E. Gignac, of the University of Western Australia, and Marcin Zajenkowski of the University of Warsaw in Poland, say they’ve determined that “for many of us, overall psychological functioning actually peaks between ages 55 and 60.” ‘Peak performance’

Gignac and Zajenkowski compiled results from 10 existing studies — including data a total of 321,661 people — and quantified and standardized them.

Their goal was to identify 16 “well-established psychological traits” that they could measure and assign scores to — things that “represent enduring characteristics rather than temporary states, have well-documented age trajectories, and are known to predict real-world performance,” as Gignac explained in an accompanying article.

Among them were core cognitive abilities, along with “the so-called ‘big five’ personality traits – extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness.”

Reviewing all the other studies, they concluded that people reach their peak in many of these key traits later in life than some might suspect.

Overall, they suggest that “peak performance” and “overall mental functioning” generally occurs for most people somewhere between ages 55 and 60, when you combine measures of both cognitive and personality traits. ‘High levels of functioning’

The researchers found that different abilities peak at different ages:

Early to mid-20s: peak for fluid intelligence (reasoning, memory, and processing speed).
Age 60: moral reasoning
Mid-60s: crystallized intelligence (vocabulary, knowledge).
Age 65: conscientiousness
Age 65: financial literacy
Age 75: emotional stability
Into the 80s: “capacity to resist cognitive biases.”

Of course, physical peak occurs much earlier.

I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’ll probably never beat some of my PRs from the early 2000s — although in practice many people who make healthier choices later life do wind up in better physical shape than they were personally at earlier ages.

“It should be emphasized that not all individuals experience cognitive or personality change at the same rate or magnitude,” Gignac and Zajenkowski wrote in the study. “Longitudinal research shows substantial variability in aging trajectories, with some people maintaining high levels of functioning well into late life.” George H.W. Bush was right

Still, Charles Darwin was 50 before he published “On the Origin of Species,” Beethoven was 53 — and deaf — when he premiered his Ninth Symphony.

Ray Kroc was 52 when he met the McDonald brothers and began building the fast-food empire. Sam Walton opened the first Walmart at 44. Vera Wang became a fashion designer at 40.

Come to think of it, I was in my 40s before I started writing for Inc.com—a milestone that changed my career trajectory in retrospect.

Gignac’s conclusion?

“History is full of people who reached their greatest breakthroughs well past what society often labels as ‘peak age,'” he wrote. “Perhaps it’s time we stopped treating midlife as a countdown and started recognising it as a peak.”

Better than the alternative.

Some of my best ideas come to me when I’m exercising.

At least I think they’re some of my best ideas; by the time I actually get a chance to write them down, I’ve often forgotten them. While you could argue that something I was unable to remember for an hour or so can’t be that great, still: we’ve all had things we wanted to remember, but couldn’t.

So what can you do if you need to remember something important? Most memory-improvement techniques — like mnemonics, chunking, and building memory palaces — involve a fair amount of effort.

But these simple strategies to improve your short-term memory and recall require almost no effort — and very little time.

1. Say it out loud.

We’ve all been around people who repeat things they’re learning out loud. Or just mouth the words. They look a little odd: smart people just file knowledge away. They don’t have to talk to themselves.

Actually, smart people do talk to themselves.

A study published Learning, Memory, and Cognition found that saying words out loud — or just mouthing them — makes them more distinctive by separating them from all the other words you’re thinking. In short, saying words out loud makes them different.

Which makes them more memorable.

So go ahead. When you need to remember something, say it aloud. Or mouth it to yourself.

Your cerebral cortex will thank you for it.

2. Predict whether you will actually remember.

Sounds odd, I know. But a study published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology shows the simple act of asking yourself whether you will remember something significantly improves the odds that you will remember, in some cases by as much as 50 percent.

That’s especially true for remembering things you want to do. Psychologists call them prospective memories: remembering to perform a planned action, or recall a planned intention, at some point in the future. Like remembering to praise an employee, email a customer, or implement a schedule change.

Why this works is somewhat unclear. Maybe the act of predicting is a little like testing yourself; research shows that quizzing yourself is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. What is clear is that the act helps your hippocampus better form and index those episodic memories for later access.

So if you want to remember to do something in the future, take a second and predict whether you will remember.

Science says that act alone makes it more likely you will.

3. Rehearse for 40 seconds

Memory consolidation is the process of transforming temporary memories into more stable, long-lasting memories. Even though the process of memory consolidation can be sped up, still: Storing a memory in a lasting way takes time.

One way to increase the odds is to rehearse whatever you want to remember for 40 seconds. A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that a brief period of rehearsal — like replaying an event in your mind, going over what someone said in a meeting, or mentally mapping out a series of steps — makes it significantly more likely that you will remember what you rehearsed.

As the researchers write, that “brief period of rehearsal has a huge effect on our ability to remember complex, lifelike events over periods of one to two weeks. We have also linked this rehearsal effect to processing in a particular part of the brain: the posterior cingulate.”

Which should be long enough for you to actually do something with whatever you hope to remember.

4. Close your eyes for 2 minutes.

A study published in Nature Reviews Psychology found that “… even two minutes of rest with your eyes closed can improve memory, perhaps to the same degree as a full night of sleep.”

Psychologists call it “offline waking rest.” In its purest form, offline waking rest can be closing your eyes and zoning out for a couple of minutes. But offline waking rest can also be daydreaming. Mind-wandering. Meditating. Basically turning your mind off for a minute or two.

While mentally disconnecting doesn’t sound productive, when it comes to remembering more, it is: without those intermittent periods of lack of focus, memory consolidation doesn’t occur nearly as efficiently.

So go ahead and zone out for a couple minutes. As the researchers write, “Moments of unoccupied rest should be recognized as a critical contributor to human waking cognitive functions rather than a waste of time.”

Can’t beat that.